Search - Essa 3 :: Essa 3

This isn't your typical trip-hop album.

amberose | FL USA | 06/12/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'd classify this more as "ambient-techno" than I would trip-hop altough I guess that title isn't too far off. Upon hearing the increadible track "Sundial" on a local public radio program I searched for this cd for quite awhile and eventually found it more than a year later.This album is very dancy, but not exactly something you would hear in a club. There are alot of "tapping", light bells and waterdrop effects on this album and it can only be described as "unique". Some of the album has somewhat of a cultrual feel - especially the song "Sundial" which has flowing, soft tribal chants, dreamy, floating atmospheres and an underlying, base-driven hypnotic groove.This is somewhat of a difficult cd to compare with anything else - I'm not sure of any other albums that sound quite like this. You simply have to hear it for yourself!"

Essa 3

Jeffrey Rivers | Milwaukee, WI | 05/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Essa 3 is a fantastic artist. Simple yet complex, textured with layer after layer of soothing angelic vibrations. I ordered this record after hearing "Pool 2" on Groovesalad net radio. All the tracks flow with a similar ebb of the opener "Pool." This is "Atmospheric-Ambient-Downtempo" electronic music, where most of the tracks are inbetween 80-120 bpm. Between "Sundial" and "Pool" I'd say that this album is worth buying. I'd recommend this record if you enjoy such classics as Hallucinogen, Orbital, or Future Sound of London."

Would be worth it even if Sundial was the only track

Huns | Pomona, CA United States | 12/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The entire CD consists of variations on a theme. Listen to a couple tracks and you'll pick up on it. The theme itself is a simple traveling arrangement of major notes and lends a positive sound throughout. My personal preference is towards Coalesce and Sundial, but all of the tracks make an interesting contribution.



Pool 1, Coalesce and Sundial do a good job at exploring the theme in three different ways. The first is a somewhat complex intro with cascading, echoing, drippy sounds that weave their way around a lead that makes me think of concentration (the easy, unhurried kind.) Coalesce is more energetic and hard (powerful - not rough-edged at all), the kind of music I'd want to listen to if I was doing aerobatics in an F-16. It comes on in several increasingly energetic layers that arrive one by one. Turn up the bass on this one. There are some nuances here that you might not hear without headphones.



Sundial is by far the most mellow - think "soaring 10,000 feet above a pristine landscape on a beautiful spring day while cotton-ball clouds float in the distance." Or, "curling up with your significant other on a mountaintop."



Glass Roots is more jazzy. Think driving through the downtown area of a big city on a Saturday night. Resolve is more of the same. Pool 2 is an obvious successor to Pool 1, with a similar exploration of the theme and more of the same echoing/cascading ambience wandering around a focused and somewhat minimal exploration of the theme.



Then there is something CDDB calls a "mystery track" which could be an outro for Pool 2. It is a little funkier.



If you do not like repetitive music, look elsewhere. If you want to experience several uplifting variations on an interesting theme, presented in songs that don't rush themselves (the shortest is 6:56 and the longest 10:31), check this out."